George Church, Wyss sci­en­tists and North­pond chal­lenge con­ven­tion­al RNA man­u­fac­tur­ing with new biotech

RNA med­i­cine has been at the fore­front for the past few years, with the first RNA si­lenc­ing ther­a­py ap­proved in 2018, and mR­NA Covid vac­cines fol­low­ing af­ter. But fly­ing un­der the radar has been the process of ac­tu­al­ly mak­ing RNA for these treat­ments.

That’s what Daniel Wie­gand and Jonathan Rit­tichi­er have been work­ing on in George Church’s lab for the past six years.

Fri­day morn­ing, they un­veiled En­Plu­sOne Bio­sciences, a biotech built on their RNA syn­the­sis plat­form. Wie­gand will serve as the Wa­ter­town, MA-based biotech’s CEO, and Rit­tichi­er will be CSO. And no dif­fer­ent from his oth­er star­tups, Church will be act­ing as sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­sor. Its fourth co-founder, Dan Ahlst­edt, joined through a Har­vard Busi­ness School pro­gram, and will be COO.

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